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Why Self-Care Matters To Your Mission

Self-care is more than facials and meditation. (Photo courtesy of Pexels)

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Sometimes self-care feels like a buzz word. And other times, it’s something you really, really need. I so enjoyed talking to Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman, authors of The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit: Strategies for Impact without Burnout as well as my Women Online colleague, Christine Koh, on the importance of self-care at work. Their conclusion: you’re better able to fulfill your organization’s mission when you’re happy, healthy, and well. Check out the podcast for the our full conversation. Here are some of the highlights:

On how self-care is more than just kale smoothies and massages:

Aliza Sherman: “It’s really much more holistic than that, and much more sustainable. We wrote the book to give people an idea of the plan and strategy behind self-care. Don’t just do one thing, and feel good for a minute. How can you change your habits and attitudes?”

Beth Kanter: “If you have a habit of self-care, which is sort of flexing your resilience muscle, then when the bad stuff happens, hopefully you don’t totally forget those habits. And you know when you’re burning out and you can begin to switch that off.”

Beth Kanter: “Of course everybody needs self-care. But I’ve seen many social change activists put the cause first, before their personal needs. And I’ve seen so many burn out. We’ve heard of so many people who end up with heart attacks, or they have stress related disorders, their hair is falling out. In our sector we operate on a scarcity mindset: we don’t have any resources so we’re going to deprive ourselves. I don’t think we need to think of self-care as a luxury, but as part of doing this really important work around social change.”

Aliza Sherman: “I’m also really interested in tech wellness. I feel like none of us have learned how to use technology well, in a healthy way considering head-to-toe wellness. I’m suffering from neck arthritis from 25 years of computer use!”

In my business life, I consult with many nonprofit organizations, and staff at these organizations often face extreme burnout; the resources can be scarce and the work demanding. Even worse, since you’re working for “good,” building in self-care might even be seen as cheating, or running against the mission. It’s not true!

On how to build self-care practices:

Beth Kanter: “Self-care starts with tiny habits. To create a new habit, it has to be something small. You have to find the trigger--the right time in your schedule. And then you train the cycle. So my may start by setting a habit, but if you didn’t set a trigger, then you didn’t do it. For example, after I got physical activity and sleeping well down, I decided I would try mindfulness using those headspace apps. But I didn’t do it! And then I realized that instead of being anxious while my coffee machine is brewing in the morning, I could use that time to breathe deeply.”

Christine Koh: “So much of self care is about permission and forgiveness. Give yourself permission to practice self-care, and then forgive yourself when it doesn’t work.”

Aliza Sherman: “It’s about prioritization. Don’t wait for something horrible to happen until you realize what’s important in life. In our society, we prioritize work as our most essential piece of our life, as our identity. But in truth it’s ourselves first, it’s our loved ones, it’s our friends -- those who replenish our energy, who support us and love us, that’s really the priority. And we keep flip-flopping that. So if you make some conscious choices to put the most important things first, then you’re able to compartmentalize better and parse out your time better. But we don’t always do that. Or we do it for a little while, and then we stop.”

On how to advocate for self-care at work:

Beth Kanter: “If your boss is burning the midnight oil, there’s this expectation that you will be too. Some leaders will be pro-self care, and others will look at self-care as not doing the work. So one of the ways to get started is to present the research out there that shows that if you’re working over 50, 60 hours a week you’re not as productive. Why waste that additional time? We all suffer from collaborative overload: back-to-back meetings and tons of emails. Thinking about shorter meetings, scheduling, blocking in that power hour with yourself where you’re working on solo stuff.”

Aliza Sherman: “It is about leadership modeling that comes from the top down. And it’s also about us walking into our workplaces and holding on to the changes we’ve made. And it’s about how employees can work together as a committee to practice organizational self-care that works for them. This one non-profit, Pathways Canada, bought a crockpot and brought it into the office. And they created crockpot Mondays. Employees take the time to prepare the meal.They start on Monday morning. It has to be vegan and gluten free to be inclusive. The smell goes through the office and triggers everyone to come and enjoy a healthy meal. And they bring everyone together as part of that. It wasn’t just a great communal moment. It was something employees talked about as a perk.”

I'm the author of Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert’s Roadmap to Getting Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home). My mission is to make work work for everyone,…

I'm the author of Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert’s Roadmap to Getting Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home). My mission is to make work work for everyone, especially those who feel exhausted, disenfranchised, and discouraged by the 24/7 grind of always being “on.” I'm an ambitious introvert and founder of the award-winning social impact agency Women Online and The Mission List, an influencer network for people who care about social good.